Nanticoke, once North America’s largest coal plant, to host 40MW solar farm

Okay, it’s ridiculous to compare a 40-megawatt solar PV park to a coal-fired power plant that could crank out 4,000 megawatts at peak capacity, but the fact Ontario Power Generation (OPG) got a contract today to build such a solar project at the old Nanticoke Generating Station is, at the very least, symbolically significant.

Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator announced the results Thursday of its Large Renewable Procurement (LRP), which, for good reason, replaces the previous feed-in-tariff (FIT) program. The FIT program just couldn’t keep up with the pace of technological change and learning in the industry, and since the solar and wind industry in Ontario is now well established, it was time to abandon the rich premiums that came with the FIT and make the big boys of renewable energy compete for Ontario’s business.

In total, 455 megawatt of wind, solar and hydro was contracted out as part of the LRP:

Five wind contracts totalling 299.5 MW, with a weighted average price of 8.59 cents per kWh;

seven solar contracts totalling 139.885 MW, with a weighted average price of 15.67 cents; and

four hydroelectric contracts totalling 15.5 MW, with a weighted average price of 17.59 cents.

The lowest price Ontario got for wind was 6.45 cents, which is half of what it initially paid under its feed-in-tariff program. As Ontario’s Clean Air Alliance pointed out, that’s lower than what a re-built Darlington Nuclear Station is expected to cost, assuming it doesn’t go over budget (and history says it likely will). Now, nuclear is baseload, wind isn’t. But keep in mind that the purchased wind power comes risk-free to Ontario ratepayers. Can’t say that for nuclear deals in the province, no matter how much lipstick you put on a pig.

With solar, the lowest price locked in was 14.15 cents, which is remarkably close to what Ontario was paying for large-scale wind under its FIT program. It’s also significantly lower than rates for large-scale solar under the FIT program, which back in 2013 started at 34 cents and climbed from there.

These power purchase agreements (PPAs) show just how much solar costs have fallen — and will continue to fall. Now, you may be tempted to point to super-low cost solar contracts announced in places like California, Texas and New Mexico. Toronto-based Skypower has even bid 8 cents (U.S.) for projects in India. But keep in mind the solar regime isn’t as favourable in Ontario, the dollar is lower, and projects were tied to some social goals. For example, 13 of 16 projects include participation from one or more Aboriginal communities, including five projects with more than 50 per cent Aboriginal participation. I wonder, however, if the province could have secured even lower bids if it agreed to backstop loans on winning projects — perhaps from a green bond issue?

Still, the price is heading in the right direction. As the Canadian Solar Industries Association said,

“It is also the first time that a utility scale solar project has been contracted at a price that is lower than the retail rate of electricity in Ontario.”

That’s a milestone we should all remember.

But back to the OPG contract. Its significance wasn’t lost on Dan Woynillowicz, policy director at Clean Energy Canada.

“It’s both a powerful symbol and great progress to see a contract offered for a solar farm that will be built on the land once occupied by the Nanticoke coal-fired power plant, once Canada’s top greenhouse gas polluter.”

I wrote about OPG’s planned bid for solar projects last May in Corporate Knights. At the time, OPG was hoping to win up to 120 megawatts worth of projects, which would be spread across its shut down Nanticoke and Lambton generation sites, as well as its still-operating Lennox station near Kingston.

Here’s what I said:

OPG, a publicly owned crown corporation, has historically been held back from bidding on renewable energy projects, given that its sheer size and influence were seen as unfair advantages in a competitive, open market procurement process. The company supplies roughly half of the province’s power, mostly through nuclear and large hydroelectric facilities.

In June 2013, however, the Ontario government restructured its feed-in-tariff program such that only smaller renewable-energy projects could participate. Larger project proposals, those generally more than 500 kilowatts in size, would need to compete through a request-for-proposal (RFP) process.

And in a controversial twist, Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli directed the Ontario Power Authority to allow OPG to participate in all renewable energy procurement rounds.

I think it’s smart to let OPG enter this game. Sure, it’s a large publicly owned incumbent, but the solar market has matured and can hold its own. OPG also has unique experience (and recent success) partnering with aboriginal communities.

One potential hitch is that SunEdison is OPG’s development partner. The company is going through some tough times right now (the existential kind), and it’s unclear whether that will have an impact on OPG’s plans.

2 thoughts on “Nanticoke, once North America’s largest coal plant, to host 40MW solar farm”

Hey, so when you bash the Darlington rebuild, you should probably also be noting that the “below cost PPA” wind ignores an inconvenient truth. Namely, due to the imperfect distribution of generation for wind (ie. wind not blowing for days at a time), roughly the same amount of natural gas plant has to be idled ready to step in if the wind cuts out. This isn’t free, but is rarely noted when looking at PPAs – the wind farm operators have no incentive to price in the costs the grid has to manage.

I will give you credit for understanding that wind is not base load, but I think that whole paragraph is a bit disingenuous to those who don’t understand the intermittency of renewables and the challenges it poses for the electrical grid. It’s a big part why our hydro bills have unfortunately increased so much over the past decade.